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This is the (occasional) blog of a career restaurant wine professional who used to write newspaper wine columns on the side for fun, but who is now a full-time wine journalist doing restaurant consulting for fun. "Culinary wine," to me, means I believe in the quaint old notion that wine is actually a food, and that it should be balanced like ingredients in a well made dish. If you like the idea, you might find some delicious new insights into wine in this blog. - Randy Caparoso

Organic wine & food matching: Vertvs Tempranillo & Hawaiian beef stew

There’s a memorable story in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, told by the faithful Sancho Panza, of the great wine judges in his lineage; particularly, two on his father’s side who were once challenged to identify a wine from a barrel. The first one brought the wine to the tip of his tongue, and declared the flavor of iron. The second one just needed to pass it under his nose before declaring a stronger flavor of cordovan leather. The owner of the wine protested, however, saying his wine was perfectly clean, with no trace of iron or leather. Days later, though, after the wine was sold and the barrel emptied, cellarers found a small iron key at the bottom of the barrel, hanging by a thong of leather.

The story of these men from La Mancha took place at the start of the 1600s, during the same period of time Cervantes wrote his epic tale. Sometimes we forget how old the fine arts – like literature, wine judging, and great winemaking – really are.

There are written records from the court of King Pedro I of Castilla in Spain, for instance, dating Bodegas Iranzo back to 1335. Evidently, the family of Iranzo Perez-Duque is still going strong after over six hundred years, as our organic wine of the day – Iranzo’s 2003 Vertvs Tempranillo Crianza (about $14) – is as bright, rose petal fresh, raisiny ripe and round as any red wine in the world. Doing justice to the Spanish connoisseurs of olde, Doug Frost MW/MS goes further by describing it as “layered and vibrant… soft… a little grippy… red raspberry, cooked cranberries, blueberry hints…” and whom, bodacious mis amigos, am I to argue?

The vineyard plantings of Bodegas Iranzo – in the region of Utiel-Requena, made up of lime-crusted sandy soils in hills some 2,700 ft. in elevation, just off the Mediterranean coast near Valencia – are also fortunate enough to be located in the middle of a National Reserve Park, and for centuries were cultivated naturally, without the use of modern day chemicals or fertilizers. So it was simply natural for this estate to attain, in 1994, one of Spain’s first EU/Agricultura Ecológica certifications; and the first in all of Spain to receive USDA National Organic Program accreditation as well.

Bodegas Iranzo’s fertilizers, as it were, are derived from sheep manure from extensively farmed flocks within the district; and the family has encouraged further biodiversity, since the 1950s, by maintaining a program of reforestation on some 75 acres of surrounding land with native woodland species, as well as the establishment of a nearby flora micro-reserve.

Hawaiian Beef Stew

But all this is beside the most important point for us: the wine makes damned good drinking; full flavored, yet soft and warming on the palate. It’s this kind of wine, in fact, that always makes me think of soft, warming dishes like Louisiana style red beans and rice, or Mexican machaca (shredded beef). But since I’m from the Islands, I have to say that it may be even better with a luscious tomato, carrot and beef studded Hawaiian beef stew, which comes in as many variations as Islanders who cook. This recipe -- adapted from Muriel Miura and Betty Shimabukuro’s What Hawai’i Likes to Eat -- is pretty much basic, but guaranteed deliciousness:

"I fought against the bottle," as Leonard Cohen wrote, "but I had to do it drunk"... specializing in wine as a restaurateur, retailer, wine judge, journalist, frequent flyer and mental traveler. But to me, wine is a food like a rose is a rose. So why all the fuss?
Currently: Editor-at-Large/Bottom Line Columnist, The SOMM Journal; Contributing Editor, The Tasting Panel. Awards: Sante's Wine & Food Professional of the Year (1998); Restaurant Wine's Wine Marketer of the Year (1992 & 1999); Academy of Wine Communications (commendation) for Excellence in Wine Writing and Encouragement of Higher Industry Standards; Electoral College Member, Vintners Hall of Fame at the Culinary Institute of America, Greystone.